Rube Goldberg Machine

Construction Log

• Day 1: Brainstormed & picked theme, made rough draft of blueprint

• Day 2: Created official first blueprint, listed materials and steps

• Day 3: Transfer blueprints to board, sawed out house, and picked out board

• Day 4: Made rough draft of lever, nailed in ramps, and made rough draft of pulley

• Day 5: Finalized lever, continued with pulley, brainstormed screw

• Day 6: Finalized pulley, finished ramps, worked on screw, made mini lever

• Day 7: Worked on building screw

• Day 8:  Finished screw, redesigned pulley

• Day 9: Worked on pulley, made dominoes

• Day 10: Worked on pulley, added ramps, added support

• Day 11: Finalized pulley, ran tests

• Day 12: Ran tests, worked on calculations

• Day 13: Worked on calculations, added walls to ramps

• Day 14: Worked on calculations, added domino support, ran tests

• Day 15: Finished calculations, painted, and ran more tests

Concepts Used: 

• Kinetic Energy & Potential Energy: Kinetic Energy is the energy of an object due to motion. We found the kinetic energy of our ball when it interacts with a wedge & rolls down a ramp. The equation we used to find kinetic energy is 1/2 the mass times the velocity squared.  Potential Energy is the energy of an object due to its position relative to other objects. We found the potential energy of our marble when it was at the top of our tube. The equation we used to find potential energy was mass times acceleration due to gravity times the height of the tube. 

• Velocity: Velocity is how fast an object is moving and in what direction. We found the velocity of several of our ramps. The equation we used to find the velocity is Δd/Δt. Velocity helped us to find other values such as  kinetic energy, acceleration, and force. 

• Acceleration: Acceleration is an object's ability to gain speed within a certain amount of time.  We found the acceleration of a lot of our ramps. The equation that we used to find acceleration is Δv/Δt. We used the concept of acceleration to find force. 

• Force: Force is the push or pull of an object due to an interaction with another object. We found the force of several of our ramps, using the equation of f=ma to determine the values. 

• Mechanical Advantage: Mechanical advantage is how much further or easier a simple machine makes a task. We calculated the mechanical advantage of many of our simple machines, including our levers, pulley, and screw. We used the equation dload/deffort to find the mechanical advantage of our machines.  

• Toppling: This was a concept that was unfamiliar to me before I started this project. Toppling is when the mass of an object reaches outside the object's base. We used this concept to explain the physics behind our dominoes falling down. 

Simple Machines

Pulley: Our pulley took the most time out of all our simple machines. We redesigned it many times, and ended up with a very fragile simple machine that only worked around half the time. It took a while to figure out the position the pulley had to be in in order for it to be somewhat functional. This pulley took us around 8 hours to complete. 

Screw: We had 1 screw in our machine near the end. The screw took us a large amount of time, because it was difficult to make a spiral shape out of the materials we had. We ended up hot gluing a lot of small pieces of cardboard in a downward spiral shape. It took a lot of editing to make the screw work, but in the end it was fully functional. 

Ramp: We had a total of 5 ramps in our Rube Goldberg Machine. The ball would roll down one and drop to another going another direction, and this process was repeated several times. The final ramp sent the ball rolling down a steep tube.

Lever: We had two levers in our machine. When the ball dropped into the cup at the end of the first lever, it lifted the end up to tilt another lever that held a ball down. This released the ball as it was able to go down the ramps.

Wedge: Our wedge was our first step. We lifted it up to release a ball that would roll down into a cup. It prevented the potential energy the ball had from being converted into kinetic energy before our machine started. 

Reflection

I think there was a lot of ups and downs in this project. In the beginning of the process, we were very productive, and quickly got ahead in our construction. This was mainly because of one group member who was especially skilled at building our project. However, as soon as we struck a challenging part in our machine, our efficiency died out. We were stuck for a very long time on constructing both our pulley and screw. It was a hard time for our group because everyone was frustrated at the lack of progress we were making. We made countless different pulleys, and we were constantly redesigning and trying to come up with new ideas. With assistance from the teachers, we were able to come up with an adequate screw design and construct it successfully. While we were happy with this success, the pulley took us far longer to complete, and our final product of it wasn't the best it have been. However, I think our group overall did a good job with presenting, planning, and constructing our machine in the end, so although there were setbacks and things that didn't go so well, I was still happy with our final machine. 

During this project, I improved my collaboration skills and my ability to persevere. Working in a group for a project like this was difficult, as we all had different ideas, work ethics, skill sets, etc. Near the end of the project, I think I really stepped in as a group leader although it wasn't a role I normally tend to be. It was hard for my group to persevere when things weren't going perfectly smooth, and so I had to step in as leader to keep progress moving so we wouldn't fall behind. There were sometimes where the lack of progress was because we stopped trying to come up with new ideas, and we were stuck. I learned to collaborate with my group members even when I felt they weren't contributing as much as they could. I another big thing I learned during the project was perseverance. As I mentioned before, my group faced a lot of setbacks during our project, and it was hard for me to keep it going. However, I learned that it isn't the end of the world when things go wrong, and you just have to keep analyzing and redesigning. This process of making mistakes and learning from them is especially important in the engineering field in my opinion, so I am glad I learned it.

Two things I think I should improve on next time are time management and coming up with ideas. Time management was a big issue we struggled with near the end of this project. Because we weren't making much progress, it was difficult to remain just as productive because we weren't seeing a visible outcome. Because of this, my group fell behind for a period of time before we figured out a way to overcome our challenges. We didn't have as much time to practice our presentation as I would have liked because we were still tweaking our machine and finishing up calculations. I think a way to achieve this goal would be to start off with a more solid plan that covers what we will do if something doesn't go smoothly. Another skill I think I still need to improve on was coming up with ideas. Although I took on a leader role in the end, I still wasn't contributing a lot of ideas. The main thing I worked on was calculating all the necessary values and putting together our presentation. I think the project would have gone more in a way I was happy with if I came up with ideas and shared them with the group.